In some conventional systems, a wireless system may broadcast radio frequency (RF) signals and receive RF signals. Generally, RF signals are transmitted at higher power levels than power levels of RF signals received at an antenna. The RF signals to be transmitted may be amplified to a desired power level by a power amplifier before being communicated to a transmit antenna. These transmitted signals will attenuate with distance traveled so that a receive antenna that is farther away will generally receive a weaker signal than a receive antenna that is closer. Typically, the received signals may not be able to be processed without being amplified.
Accordingly, the received RF signals may be amplified by a low-noise amplifier (LNA) before further processing the signals. For example, the RF signals may be downconverted to a lower frequency and/or demodulated, by the receiver portion of the wireless system. The LNAs may be designed to minimize addition of noise to the received RF signals since the signal-to-noise level may be very low.
However, since the LNAs may be adversely affected by the power levels generated by the power amplifiers, the LNAs and power amplifiers may be placed on separate chips. This may increase the chip count for a system, resulting in additional parts, larger printed circuit board layout real estate, and more complex trace routing.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.